HOM.04

Religious Conquest, 1638-1670, is the fourth volume of the History of Micronesia: A Collection of Source Documents (HOM), compiled and edited by Rodrique Levesque.

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The History of Micronesia: A Collection of Source Documents, Volume 4, Religious Conquest

The History of Micronesia: A Collection of Source Documents was complied, edited and published by Rod Levesque from 1992 to 2002. Copyrights were obtained by the Habele Outer Island Education Fund, a US nonprofit, in 2022, which digitized the content to facilitate noncommercial access to, and use of, the twenty-volume series. The PDF file for HOM.04 is roughly 65MB.

Levesque's Summary

Volume 4 contains 82 chapters totalling 123 documents covering all the voyages made in the Pacific during this period by Spanish galleons, and 2 ex¬editions made by Dutch ships (Quast, Vries). For the first time ever, there is a complete set of documents from the archives about the conquest of the Mariana Islands and the establishment of a Spanish colony and Jesuit mission there. Every document appears in its proper chronological sequence.

—List of the 26 illustrations, including maps of Oceania and Micronesia; list of abbreviations.

—A foreword recapitulating the major events of the period. The first event was the shipwreck of the galleon Concepcion at Saipan, which stranded a few survivors for 30 years until the Spanish arrived to found a settlement. The treasure of this galleon was salvaged only in 1987-88.

—In 1662, a Jesuit mission band was on its way to Manila when some priests were impressed by the nakedness of the Guam natives. Father Sanvitores, the Apostle of the Marianas, decided to seek permission to establish a mission there.

—In 1668, he came back with 6 other missionaries and 30 colonists (mostly Filipinos), and 3 muskets for self-defence. Two of the Filipinos had lived in the Islands for 20 years and taught the Chamorro language to the missionaries on the way over, so well, in fact, that a grammar and catechism had already been written in that language before their arrival at Guam. This document is reproduced in full in Appendix A.

—The site of the first Spanish settlement in Guam was at Agafia on land given by Chief Kipuha. His boat shed was transformed into the first temporary church.

—The first 2 years of the Mariana Mission were successful, in spite of anti-Christian rumors spread by a Chinese resident of Guam who had deserted 20 years earlier from a champan that had been driven from the Molucca Passage by a storm.

—Many documents refer to population statistics and the record is set straight; the initial estimates were too high, and mostly due to an error in arithmetic.

—The paper discovery of the Caroline Islands in 1664 is due to another Jesuit serving in Celebes. Father Miedes interviewd some Carolinian drifters from Ifaluk Atoll. It turns out that the people of the Central Carolines knew the whole area well and had even visited Melanesia. Strange as it may seem, however, at that time, they did not yet know about the Marianas.

—In 1660, another Spanish galleon, the Victoria, was shipwrecked in Micronesia, this time in Palau (event reported here for the first time). One native who witnessed this disaster drifted by canoe to the Philippines in 1668 and reported the event. The Victoria had, like the Chinese champan, been on the way from Manila to Temate, when she was driven from the Molucca Passage to Palau.

—The period ends on a sour note. Father Medina was the first missionary to be killed, in Saipan in 1670.

—A detailed list of 72 Jesuit missionaries who served in the Marianas during the 101 years that the Mission lasted is given in Appendix B. This list is the result of years of research on this subject.

Publication Details

Lévesque Rodrigue. History of Micronesia : A Collection of Source Documents. Vol. 4 Religious Conquest: 1638-1670,. Gatineau Québec: Lévesque Publications; 1995.

ISBN-10: 0920201040

ISBN-13: 978-0920201046

LCC: DU500 .H58 2000

HOM.04

Contents

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Levesque's Summary

Table of Contents

Publication Details